For whatever it's worth from an anonymous but inside source, the former staff members believe they are at war with Freenode, are colluding on Libera to attack Freenode with bots and spam, and intentionally damaged Freenode's infrastructure when they left. These people are not being forthright about their actions, but I still have no idea why. Originally I supported the breakaway faction of staffers, but now I see there's a lot more to this story than we have all been told.